Lao Tzu (570 – 490 B.C.E.) was an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He is the reputed author of the Tao Te Ching, the founder of philosophical Taoism, and revered in religious Taoism and traditional Chinese religions. Some accounts say Lao Tzu was a scholar who worked as the Keeper of the Archives for the royal court, but in truth very little is known about him. It doesn’t appear that Lao Tzu ever opened a formal school, but nonetheless attracted a large number of students.
Quotes by Lao Tzu…
If you persist in trying
To attain what is never attained
If you persist in making effort
To obtain what effort cannot get;
If you persist in reasoning
About what cannot be understood, you will be destroyed
By the very thing you seek.
To know when to stop
To know when you can get no further
By your own action,
This is the right beginning!
By neglecting self-interest we achieve self-interest.
It is the Way of Heaven not to strive, and yet it knows how to overcome; not to speak, and yet it knows how to win a response.
Leave all things to take their natural course and do not interfere.
The partial becomes whole, the crooked becomes straight, the empty becomes full, the worn out becomes new.
Take precautions before the evil appears; regulate things before disorder has begun.
The sage attends to the inner, and not to the outer.
To see small beginnings is clearness of sight.
Use the light that is in you to recover your natural clearness of sight.
Perfect kindness acts without thinking of kindness.